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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Habersham Farms Project - The Barn






Habersham Farms Project - The Buildings
Brown Design Studio, along with Moser Design Group is hosting a group of students from Andrews University for their Spring 2010 Semester. They will be writing periodically about their farm project for Family Farms Foundation’s Habersham Farms in Beaufort, SC. They will be designing a series of buildings for the farm, building one of them, and completing pricing sets for others, so that they’re ready for farmer Pat Gallagher to build.
March 23, 2010
The schematic design process for the Habersham Farm project is producing more refined drawings that are depicting the essence and ideology of Patrick Gallagher’s dream of a family farm – a place dedicated to promoting local, organic, sustainable agriculture as well as supporting small, low country farms. As architecture interns it’s our duty to assist Patrick in bringing his ideas for the farm into fruition, which is one objective that we are well on our way to accomplishing.
One of the buildings that will serve as iconic gesture for the farm in its later phase of development is the barn, which will be located off in the distance on the northeastern part of the site. The barn will serve as a terminating vista for patrons and visitors as they leave the homestead area of the farm to take a constitutional through the Gateway building into the fields. As a backdrop to the homestead the barn will hopefully evoke a sense of nostalgia in visitors – thus adding to the authenticity of the farm. One will also see the barn from Cherokee Farms Road, and once the new road leading into town is completed, it will be visible from there as well.
The barn’s initial purpose will be to serve as a repair shop and equipment storage for the farm. As the farm grows the barn will eventually house some livestock and be used like a more traditional barn. The fact that the barn will serve as a storage and repair facility is one of the reasons why it is set off from the rest of the buildings on the site. In other words, the barns purpose is to hide the daily messy utilitarian functions that can’t be performed anywhere else on the farm, while simultaneously acting as an icon for the farm.
To help design a barn that met the requirements of the program and reflect the local vernacular, a precedent study of South Carolina Barns was done. One form that was present in most of the barns from the precedent study was the gable front with sloping shed roofs on each side. According to the precedent photos most barns also had clerestory louver windows to ventilate the barns, which also helped with drying tobacco. After looking at pictures and other precedent studies it was then possible to develop a barn for Habersham Farm (as seen in elevation above).
he barn above is still needs to be further developed and refined, but the direction it’s going appears to be in tune with what the local vernacular and the program.

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